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Travis_J_Smith’s #CBR5 Review #26: Danse Macabre by Stephen King

I’ll keep this one succinct. Danse Macabre is 300 pages of Stephen King rambling on aimlessly about the genre he works almost exclusively in, horror. Naturally, he doesn’t miss an opportunity to draw his own work into the larger discussion he’s attempting to have, a habit which can border on the narcissistic at times.

He also succumbs to long bouts of summary, recounting the events of books and movies in excruciating enough detail that I hardly feel the need to indulge him and read/watch them myself. These are not without shreds of analysis here and there, but nothing that’s said hits me as especially thoughtful.

Still, King as always writes with a conversational tone that I find hard not to get wrapped up in, and there are some salient points to be had. Honestly, though, it’s dependent upon your stance on King. I like to say he’s my favorite author, and even I found my eyes glazing over at times. So if you find his style off-putting, or even if the jury’s still out, approach with extreme caution. To everyone else I just say, don’t expect another On Writing.

Travis Smith’s blog, containing this review, as well as others, photography, and more, can be found here.

Thanks for the kind words and for pointing out the issue with the link. I don’t know how that happened since I copy and paste that part from earlier reviews. Guess I should go back and see how many of my reviews have that same problem.

EDIT: Literally all of them. Thank you again for catching that. I don’t know how I managed to bugger that up as much as I did.